On Saturday 24th November and 1st December 2018, 100,000 protestors across France, and thousands more in Paris, demonstrated about fuel price rises, and the poverty of rural France in general. In Paris, those demonstrations soon turned violent, as ultra-right factions highjacked the day for it’s own agenda.
Beginning on the Champs-Élysées and the spreading across Paris - the protestors tore down anything they could lay their hands, ripping up the famous Champs-Élysées cobbles, and starting multiple fires. Police from the infamous CRS used tear gas, stun grenades, water cannons and pepper spray to subdue the violence. Cars were set alight, buildings too, and shops were ransacked.
During my time on the streets throughout the riots, up close with both the CRS riot police and Pompier, and the violent protestors, many remarked to me that this was 1968 all over again - a reference to the student uprising of the late sixties - and still other's called it a revolution.
